By Benjamin-Emile Le Hay 9/19/12 4:07pm

First Lady Style Watch

Lady Obama and the girls. Photo Courtesy of AP/WWD.

Is L.A.-Based Designer Barbara Tfank Michelle Obama’s New Designer of Choice?

Word has gotten out from publicists and fashion news authority Women’s Wear Daily that first lady Michelle Obama has endorsed yet another one of Barbara Tfank’s ladylike designs for a heavily monitored public appearance. It is said to be the fifth time that the first lady has donned a Barbara Tfank frock. She wore the ravishing outfit at a meet-and-greet in Gainesville, Fla., for a young girls’ after-school program called Girls’ Place on September 17.

“A friend, who Tfank had shown the unusual fabric to, spotted the dress on C-SPAN and called the designer to tell her the news,” reported WWD.

According to our perhaps inaccurate tally, this means that Ms. Obama has worn Tfank to more public appearances than any other high-end American fashion designer, which leads us to ask: Is Barbara Tfank Ms. Obama’s new designer of choice? Has Ms. Tfank overtaken the feminine and playful aesthetic of Jason Wu? Read More

By Irina Aleksander 8/17/10 11:49pm

Clothes Encounters

Twilight of the Dirty Girl

Late last week, in a moment that feels particular to the neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a girl in her early 20s with long, seemingly unwashed brown hair, stained denim cutoffs, scuffed boots and a loose white tank top that exposed lacy bra straps rode by on a bicycle and caught the attention of Read More

By Zeke Turner 6/25/10 6:36pm

Editors-at-large

The W We Were, With John Fairchild

“If I see another movie star in a fashion magazine — it’s ridiculous! It’s a nightmare,” said John Fairchild, who launched W magazine in
1971.

“That’s what they call the cutting edge,” he continued. “I hate that word. And buzz. It’s a crock. They love buzz! When I hear the word buzz, it Read More

By Staff 1/30/06 9:00am

Monday: Soft Landing, Pause, Melt Down? Which Is It?

  • You’ve heard different terms, sometimes conflicting, in broadcasts, blogs and cocktail parties. But, how should one describe the real estate market? (The New York Times)
  • The New York City Environmental Fund gave a load of money–$763,200–to groups “that raise local environmental awareness and enhance public access to urban waters, parks and Read More

    • By Elisabeth Franck 4/08/02 12:00am

    WWD Gets Its Bite Back

    When James Fallon, then the London bureau chief of Fairchild publications, interviewed John Fairchild, the legendary editor and publisher of Women’s Wear Daily , for the paper’s 90th anniversary issue, the man who spent the late 50′s boozing with Chanel, and the 60′s reinventing the American look and spatting with most designers, told him the Read More

    By Amy Larocca 2/28/00 12:00am

    Majorcan Designer Miguel Adrover Wows W.W.D. by Mocking Big Labels

    It can happen any season. Somebody-then everybody-decides there’s a young star designer out there. A single fashion show becomes the Show. It’s held downtown, somewhere gritty and inconvenient. And, odds are, half of the people in the seats have never heard of the prodigy before. They’re there because of who else is there.

    Right in Read More

    By Carl Swanson 8/30/99 12:00am

    S.I. Newhouse Jr. Gets a Daily

    The sale of the Walt Disney Company’s Fairchild Publications to S.I. Newhouse Jr.’s Advance Publications went through the afternoon of Aug. 24. The price? A reported $650 million.

    In addition to taking on Jane and W magazines-publications that fall under Advance Publications’ Condé Nast Publications division-Mr. Newhouse is the new owner of the fashion trade Read More

    By William Norwich 5/24/99 12:00am

    WWD ‘s Fashion Illustrator Gets a Show of His Own

    Wearing a silk leopard-print ascot and a black cotton shirt, Kenneth Paul Block nursed a teatime martini in his art- and book-filled Riverside Drive apartment on May 10. Mr. Block’s evocative and elegant fashion illustrations for Women’s Wear Daily and W –which have immortalized such style icons as the Duchess of Windsor, Babe Paley and Read More